Some Nebula on a Sunday

[scarp15]

Reaching a new dark site after a forty minute drive North, I was greeted by the dramatic spectacle of the Great Rift and the occasional darting meteor. The sky looked stunning, but it was also clear that condensation was going to become a significant factor. Setting up my 76mm frac alongside my 350mm Dob I began with the frac, UHC filter and 21 Ethos to drift through the expansive cloud that forms the North America and Pelican nebula. Turning my attention to the dob and OIII filter I realised that there was a problem.

The Telrad had died! Stories are almost legendary of the near immortality of this devise, though I must had accidentally left it switched on for almost a month, even the Telrad couldn't cope with that. However I was able to attached, from my frac, my Rigel Quicfinder to the Telrad base, gingerly with an elastic band. 

After resetting to align with my RACI, I swung the scope towards the Veil complex and slowly drifted through the filamentary and wisp full nebulosity, incorporating both east and western segments and Pickering's Triangle.  In turn I focused on the familiar brain like profile and to my eyes, jelly fish like content of The Crescent after which I drifted up towards Sadr and slowly roamed through quite chaotic hints and undefined regions of nebulosity.  I was becoming increasingly concerned with condensation and so I left Cygnus for a time to focus on Aquarius and the planetary nebula's the Saturn and the Helix.  The Saturn nebula was bright and took high power very well, indicating fleeting hints of its name sake.  Whilst this was my second observation of the Saturn Nebula I had not actually observed the Helix before, as my Southern Horizons seem to almost always suffer from low cloud, murk, haze. From my location tonight it did look more promising and after a short period searching and using an OIII filter, 21 Ethos, I finally located the Helix. The image was quite engaging with some nice contrast and I lingered for a while on the view of this quite large object. After this I swung up to The Ring and enjoyed this famous spectacle at high power for a time. 

After which condensation had washed out filtered views and fogged up my low power eyepieces. Removing the filter, I attempted to use a mid power eyepiece to observe galaxies but it became hopeless due to the high humidity. Sky quality meter readings on the night ranged between 20.84 - 21.07.

Footnote: On the journey home a roe deer quite suddenly trotted into the road, I wasn't driving at speed but had to brake quite sharply, things bouncing about in the back of the car, a close call.

Note to self: Take along 12V battery and 12V hairdryer next time!

[Piero]

Nice report Iain!   That's always my concern when a tool depends on electricity to work. It's nice to read descriptions of super targets, such as the Veil, but members with larger apertures under dark skies. Your text provides us with a nice idea of it! Thanks a lot for sharing!

Helix on my list..  

[jetstream]

Great report Iain, did you see some of the NAN features with the 76mm? the bridge?

[FenlandPaul]

Nice report Iain.  Drifting through those nebulous areas must be wonderful under skies like that.  

Paul

[scarp15]

The NAN features are quite apparent with the TV76 Gerry, I had intended to use my 31T5 which will yield a 5.30' field, however the 21E provided an expansive view with good contrast. I will use the TV76 more on larger nebula and this was very much a taster perhaps, I had completely forgotten about the bridge you refer to though, one to look for in more scrutiny again, it may have been possible to locate as there were traces of nebulosity visible everywhere. I would have liked to have used the frac more extensively but but as the night progressed, there were increasing problems with dew, a dodgy tripod leg and then losing the Quicfinder to the dob cut short the period I spent on this occasion.  Bizarrely I didn't get to observe the NAN with the dob either on this occasion.

[Special K]

Very nice report @scarp15!  The NAN in that wide field really is the business isn't it?!  I soon reverted to my ED80 for this target as it is most impressive to take it all in one FOV as you have.  That said a bigger scope is useful on the fine details.

It's interesting you mentioned the humidity. I was out last night and was finding it hard to achieve good results despite a seemingly clear sky.  iPhone was saying 98%!  I was viewing dim micro clusters with varying results, though the double cluster looked absolutely fine. Odd, as M13 was just a blob and very difficult to resolve.  Not a drop of dew for some reason and wasn't breezy.  Clear skies!

[PeterW]

:-))))) nice finds, bring spare batteries... there is space inside a Telrad for several sets! 

 

Peter